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Subject: Amman #52 - Super-Secret Sqiurrel Stuff
(Posted on Jan 21, 2014 at 06:54AM )
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So yeah, since this puppy was set in the Middle East (or Middle Crease as I referred to it), you just know there is a lot of stuff going on in those parts that is not front and center in the media. It's not just some casual wedding backdrop for a single guy's comedic adventures, although it may seem that way on the surface.

It was pretty early on when this "CIA, Mossad, IIS Directorate 9, Mukhabarat, and MISIRI-cum-VEVAK" string got thrown out there. Okay, for many a folk, CIA and Mossad would set the general tone and lend a clue, but what about those other names in there? Let's take them briefly down in order, but we all know representatives of these entities, and many others unnamed here, be crawling around the region.

Okay, IIS was the Iraqi Intelligence Service generally, and also known as the Mukhabarat. There were different numbered Directorates or divisions, and number 9 was for Secret Operations, or what Bob euphemistically likes to call Super-Secret Squirrel Shit (or Stuff, if you are more prim and proper). But hey, in this world we live in, forget that naive, polite approach. Save that for your English teacher in grade school, kids. Directorate 9 supposedly specialized in sabotage and assassinations (perhaps a few operations were designed to look like accidents as needed, or even expiration by natural causes), but hey, they probably borrowed a page and traded notes with their good friends and drinking buddies in the Mossad. Who really knows what they were up to, especially these days, post Iraq War (or Invasion or Incursion or whatever you and your dog want to call it), since it was all supposedly dissolved.

MISIRI stands for the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is that country's primary intelligence entity, but also goes by the names VEVAK, VAJA, and sometimes even MOIS, and was initially SAVAMA, and not the same as SAVAK, the secret police from back in the day of the Shah. All we're missing here in the equation is a SHAZAM, and Bob ain't talking about that handy dandy song identification service of the same name, which in reality, probably does a whole lot more good in the world all by itself than all them others combined.

And while we're at it, and on topic, what's with that massive US Embassy compound in Amman? Just look at the size of this sucker. The first two two photos don't really do it justice in terms of how big it really is,, but this third aerial shot yields a little more perspective. There are colleges out there smaller than this compound.


For such a small country (estimated population of 6.5M as at July 2012), Jordan sure has a large American "diplomatic" presence in Amman. Yeah, right, let's spin some other story on that. Maybe it's all for "cultural research" or something like that. Righto, you go ahead and believe all that if you want to, just like with reality TV.

Even if you are just going to places like this for wedding fun, you can't help but notice other stuff going on in the background sometimes.